Connie Rice is a lawyer, author, and public intellectual renown for fighting systemic injustice and advancing multiracial democracy. Through coalition cases and campaigns, her work has won over $10 billion in lawsuit damages and policy changes that expanded safety and opportunity for millions in poor neighborhoods. Rice’s advocacy has earned over 50 major awards and prompted Los Angeles Magazine to call her “the voice for LA’s oppressed.” The hallmarks of her work yielded extraordinary success inside and outside of the courtroom. In 2004, Rice and her colleagues at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund represented Los Angeles bus riders in a landmark public transit case that won the largest civil rights settlement in U.S. history. In other winning coalition lawsuits, Rice stopped police misconduct, race and sex job discrimination, and unfair policies in probation, public housing, environmental justice, and capital punishment. Rice and her law partners also spearheaded a school construction campaign that won a $750 million case settlement, helped pass over $15 billion in local school construction bonds, and oversaw the construction of 135 new schools. In her most important work outside of the courtroom, Rice galvanized the police, community, and government to transform inner-city policing and end a gang homicide epidemic. With LAPD Chief Charlie Beck she pioneered the Community Safety Partnership, a UCLA validated policing that replaces mass incarceration enforcement with holistic guardian policing.